Monday, October 28, 2013

Halloween is only two days away! If you're looking for a quick, last minute costume / makeup idea, try on the "Bloody Zombie" look for size! I wanted to try to do a super simple and quick look, using "ingredients" that most people already have at home. You won't have to run out to a Halloween supply outlet, and anything you don't already have in your cabinets can be found at your local grocery or drugstore! I gave myself FIVE minutes to pull together this look, from start to finish (and that included taking the photos). Special thanks to Justin, who volunteered to be my "model" / guinea pig and turn him into the undead. Below I have included a tutorial / instructions. Nothing below is written in stone- the great thing about this look is that the only items you *really* need to stick by the books for is the oatmeal and glue for the wounds. You can use almost anything to get the blood color.You Will Need:For the ROTTEN FLESH WOUNDS / SCABS- Oatmeal (Used for those nasty, flakey woulds!)- False Eyelash Glue (or any other type of glue that dries tacky) to glue on the oatmeal. Eyelash glue can be found at almost any store that sells cosmetics (ex: CVS/Walgreens/Walmart/Target) and many Dollar Stores. This is relatively inexpensive, and should only cost a few bucks.For the BLOOD / COLORING of the wounds / scabs- Red Food Coloring- Any type of syrup, such as Karo Syrup (which is corn syrup) to use as your base to mix the food coloring into. You can also swap this out for something like vegetable or olive oil. Play around with it and see what works best. OPTIONAL:Colored Eye Shadow, Red Lipstick, etc- Used to further fill in the wounds, create bruises, etc."Bloody Zombie" MAKEUP TUTORIALPREP your blood. In a cup or small bowl, mix together the syrup with red food coloring. The more dye you add to the syrup, the darker it will be. I made two bowls: one lighter red to look like "fresh" blood, and one darker to look like "old" blood.STEP ONE: Wash & dry face so you have a clean "canvas". Decide where on your face you want to place your wounds. Apply patches of eyelash glue onto these location. Note: Make sure you do the steps individually for each wound and repeat (so the glue doesn't dry while working on other patches).

STEP TWO: Apply oatmeal over the glue. I find the easiest way to do this is stand over the sink, pour a good amount of oatmeal into your palm, and just push it onto your face. You'll have some spillage/ extra, but applying each piece of oatmeal individually would obviously not work and be incredibly time consuming. Allow to dry for several minutes.

STEP THREE: Begin filling in and coloring the wounds using whatever you desire. Here is how I did it:- Using a makeup brush (or paint brush), liberally apply "blood" over oatmeal.- After letting it dry for two minutes, I used eyeshadow around and on top of the wounds. I wanted it to look bruised around the edges, so I used shades of purple, blue, green and yellow eyeshadow. There isn't an art to this, all I did was layer the colors and blend them together with a brush.

OPTIONAL:After doing the wounds, I smudged his face with white eyeshadow to give a paler look. I also used some black and gray shadow to give the appearance of bags under the eyes, and sunken cheekbones. Play around all you like- the great thing about this makeup is that it's really hard to mess up- most anything you do will look cool and add to the creepy factor!

"Plastic Army Men Costume" - The creator and his girlfriend MADE these costumes themselves. He said he went through 8 cans of primer and 6 cans of spray paint per costume. They are standing on cardboard cutouts they carried around for photos. (Reddit User: BritishRacingGreen)

Here's another idea for a fun and filling dinner to have before Trick-or-Treating. All you have to do is make meatloaf as you normally would, but before baking, wrap in bacon and add onion and veggies for the eyes and mouth. Yummy, kooky, and a bit creepy! This will be a huge hit with the kids!

With Halloween only a few days away, there's no better time to start getting in the spooky mood! This is such a wonderful and exciting time of year for kids, and I like to make it a tradition in my household to have a fun, pre-Halloween dinner before Trick-or-Treating. That way the kiddos will be filled up, you won't have to worry about a sudden loss of energy ("read: "Mommy I'm tired can you carry me!") and best of all, if they eat a filling meal before hand, they will be less tempted to stuff their faces with candy!Here are simple ideas for a fun family Halloween dinner!1) Mummy Hot Dogs

2. Shape turkey mixture into 1/2-inch meatballs. Cook meatballs in batches over medium heat in a lightly greased large nonstick skillet. Brown all sides and turning occasionally about 8 minutes or until no longer pink.

5. In a medium resealable plastic bag, place Alfredo sauce; seal bag. Cut off a tiny corner of bag. Squeeze bag to drizzle Alfredo sauce in circles over pizza sauce, starting at the center continuously to the outer edge to look like a spider web design. Top pizza evenly with meatballs and place 1 sliced olive on top of each meatball.

6. Bake in preheated oven 8 to 12 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cut into slices and serve.

4) Scary Tacos

via alibird.blogger.com

1) Buy a taco kit (or just the ingredients shells / separately)

2) Cook and season lean ground beef or ground turkey.

3) Fill tacos with meat and fillings as desired.

4) Cut out slices of cheese to look like teeth, red peppers to look like tounges, and green olives for the eyes!

4) Creepy Veggie Dips and Plates

Using cream cheese, hummus, or even nut butter as “glue”, attach items that look like fingernails onto your favorite sliced veggies or cheese sticks (ex: cranberries on jicama sticks, almonds on carrots, and olives on celery). Use mashed up avocado for dip or add a couple drops of natural green food coloring to organic ranch dressing (crushed chlorella or liquid chlorophyll works well and is available at health food stores such as Whole Foods.)

Cut eggs in half. Arrange egg whites cut side up on a serving plate and put the yolks in a small mixing bowl. Mash yolks with fork then stir in mayonnaise, mustard, and vinegar. Mash and stir all ingredients together well. Taste and add salt and pepper if desired. Spoon a little bit of the mixture into each egg white half, dividing mixture as evenly as possible between the eggs. Sprinkle eggs with smoked paprika if desired.

Cut black olives in half, using some for the "body" and continuing to cut out others for the "legs". Add to the top of the eggs. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Celebrity Tattoo artist Bam-Bam (based in NYC) is known for inking famous bodies including Rihanna and Justin Bieber. Bam-Bam often asks his celeb clients to give HIM a tattoo, on a spot he has reserved on his arm for the star-artist's work. Justin Bieeber may have gave him the doughiest tattoo off them all....a rabbit (???) with the word "Swaggy" scribbled next to him.

Leave it to a creative Halloween-er to take the terrible ink to the next level...and DRESS UP as the SwaggyBunny. The below pic definitely brings the "LOL's"! Original tattoo is on the left.

With just 2 easy steps, you can make your own nail polish in about one minute! This is a GREAT video to share with beauty DIY lovers, Simple, easy, and awesome- especially around Halloween when you may not have the color on hand you need for a costume!

Friday, October 11, 2013

We are currently working hard so by tomorrow both a "how to" video and written/photo instructions will be posted on how to create the BEST Miley Cyrus VMA Halloween Costume. We'll go over how to do Miley's exact makeup, make a costume, and style your hair so your Miley Halloween costume will be the envy of all! For a preview, check out the pictures below of a replicated Miley look and keep your eyes peeled!